A Stock Exchange bidding on Human Life

I feel like I just watched this unfold last week in the movie theater. I was watching The Constant Gardener with Rachel Weiss and Ralph Feinnes, a tear-jerking conspiracy tale of pharmaceutical companies using African bodies for killer drug tests:

The makers of flu vaccine yesterday threatened not to produce enough bird flu vaccine to deal with an outbreak unless ministers agreed to buy more of their products.

Telegraph | News | Firms' threat to limit bird flu vaccine

In the movie version, the struggle was over expendible bodies in Africa, not in the first world. In the movie version, it was all so wet and melodramatic as to be unbelievable.